On Wednesday, December 10th, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. military had detained an oil tanker near the coast of Venezuela. Shortly after, Attorney General Pam Bondi released a video of the U.S. military’s operation to detain the tanker, describing it as a vessel that had been sanctioned.
In his statement at the White House on Wednesday afternoon, Trump told reporters, “We just detained a oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela – a very large oil tanker, in fact, the largest one detained to date.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi released a video of the detention operation, stating that the ship was “an oil tanker used for transporting sanctioned crude oil from Venezuela and Iran.”
Bondi wrote on X platform that, with the support of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the U.S. Coast Guard, they executed a detention order, seizing an oil tanker used for transporting sanctioned crude oil from Venezuela and Iran.
“For years, this oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States for its involvement in supporting illegal oil transportation networks for foreign terrorist organizations. The detention operation conducted near the coast of Venezuela was safe and reliable. We will continue our investigation in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security to prevent the transportation of sanctioned oil,” she said.
The video shared by Bondi showed a military helicopter hovering over a large ship, with U.S. soldiers rappelling onto the deck using ropes. Uniformed soldiers carrying guns can be seen walking on the ship in the video.
A senior officer told CBS that the helicopter used in this operation took off from the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, which was deployed to the Caribbean region last month.
According to CBS, the operation involved two helicopters, 10 Coast Guard members, 10 Navy Marines, and special forces. The boarding team was composed of the U.S. Coast Guard Maritime Security and Response Team, an elite maritime interception force based in Chesapeake, Virginia.
U.S. officials stated that although the U.S. government, particularly the Department of Justice and Homeland Security Investigations, had detained sanctioned tankers before, conducting rapid boarding operations from a helicopter at sea was rare.
Officials told CBS that the operation was led by the Coast Guard, with support from the Navy. Any such operation must be led by the Coast Guard as they have jurisdiction over the power to detain vessels.
The oil tanker named “Skipper” was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2022 for its alleged involvement in an oil smuggling network that provided funding to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran and Hezbollah, a Lebanese armed group supported by Iran.
The Department of the Treasury stated in a press release at the time that the vessel, previously named “Adisa” in 2022, was one of the vessels controlled by sanctioned Russian oil tycoon Viktor Artemov. The Treasury Department highlighted Artemov’s use of a vast fleet of vessels to transport Iranian oil, often registering these vessels covertly to evade U.S. restrictions on oil exports from Iran.
The 2022 Treasury sanctions announcement did not mention Venezuela. However, reports over the years have suggested ongoing oil networks between Iran and Venezuela, which has faced strong opposition from the United States. Both countries are major oil producers with the world’s largest oil reserves, but their trade is heavily restricted by U.S. sanctions.
According to public data, the oil tanker is controlled by Thomarose Global Ventures LTD, a management company based in Nigeria and owned by a company associated with Artemov.
The vessel has a 20-year-old history, originally launched as “The Toyo” in 2005. It measures 333 meters (approximately 1,092 feet) in length and was one of the largest oil tankers in the world at the time of its construction.